Crying Mantis
by Lightning Skies
Summary: Everyone comes from somewhere, including the woman hating, violent, cruel 5th Espada. Nnoitra reflects on his life and death.


_**Crying Mantis**_

Lightning_skies

Disclaimer – I don't own BtVS or Bleach.

Warnings – This is a Dark!fic/Angst!Fic with hinted male/male, blatant misogyny and homophobia, read at your own peril. None of Nnoitra's bigotry represents or reflects my opinions

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His earliest memories were of fighting. In his fragmented visions of his former life, it seemed to be one long chain of bloody violence; he was always immersed within one desperate conflict or another. The battlefields changed but he was always deep in the fray, side by side with two women, one blonde, and one redheaded. He remembered feeling love for them, but now felt nothing but disgusted hatred at himself for ever having felt such a pathetic emotion.

He remembers that something happened. The event itself isn't clear, but the aftermath was eternal. He had lost an eye. After that the memories change. The blonde and redhead begin coddling him, keeping him out of battle, sending him looks of pity when they believed he wasn't paying attention. They never voiced it, but he knew that they had decided privately to themselves that he was now useless, broken… incomplete.

He felt the lost organ keenly as an all consuming hole that was slowly destroying his life. He resented the injury, hated himself for being weak, he even began to doubt the truthfulness of his comrades. He only had their words, their cleverly fabricated stories of being locked in battle and unable to assist. Surely they were capable of moving faster, of stopping the wound from ever happening. They had always protected each other before, why was he different, after all the times he had saved them, why did they allow him to be hurt.

It had to be deliberate. They were an unbeatable team, it was inconceivable that anything could pass them by unnoticed, and so they had to have planned this. Those duplicitous whores had set him up with their smiles and false words. Behind his faithful back they had conspired and plotted and decided his fate, manipulating him into fighting their battles and defeating their enemies. Allowing him to feel grateful for being included, making him feel love and affection for their black hearts. He had been used as a tool, a cheap weapon thrown away once he was broken, edges dulled and consumed.

But where else could he go. What prospects did he have? Too long had he allowed them to use him, too long had he lived in their world, divided from reality and normalcy. He was ruined for any other life. He knew nothing but battle and had no one but them, twisted as they were. So, even as that hole devoured all the hope and light in his life, he continued to fight.

Finally, one day it happened. The culmination of the events they had planned for, the entirety of their foul trickery come to bare. The enemy approached unseen from his blind side and he was cut down. One of the stupid bitches was caught in her own trap and ended up moving between him and the enemy that killed him. He watched coldly as the light went out of her lying eyes and she faded away from life still spewing meaningless platitudes, leaving him wondering why she hadn't been more careful to stay out of the line of fire, she had to have known that her manipulations would finally spin their cruel fate, so why had she gotten in the way, rather than watching him fall from a distance, to appreciate the beauty of her betrayal.

"Serves you right, whore." He choked out his final words inaudibly through a bloody breath and followed her into the dark. When he awoke all he knew was hunger and anger. She was the first in a long series of souls he devoured. Her cries and denials were music to his ears, falling unheard into the darkness of that despairing hole.

When Aizen had returned him to human form, he swore that no woman would ever command him again. He wouldn't ever allow another female any power over him. To that end, he had eventually gotten rid of that Neliel bitch and was constantly plotting the end of the Tres Espada, Halibel. She had fearful strength and no mere trickery would bring her down. Sluts like her dug their grasping painted claws into any power they could get a hold of and guarded it jealously like the base animal bitches they really were. Sooner or later that haughty slag would fall and he would be there to watch and enjoy every minute of her pain.

But no matter what he did, despite the power he gained, his missing eye still hurt. When he died, the scarred sunken lid had been replaced with an endless hollow void; the physical manifestation of the gaping hole he had always known was there. He couldn't escape it, the evidence of his naïve stupidity and meaningless sacrifice carved into his face for all to see. It burned and throbbed and ached all the time, without end...

"Nnoitra-sama, please stop! You're hurting yourself." Tesla cried, drawing the Quinto Espada from his thoughts as he gently pulled his superior's hand away from his face, carefully removing the fingers from where they had gouged absentmindedly into the sensitive flesh on the inner ring of his hollow hole. Feeling moisture on his cheek, Nnoitra wiped at it with a fingertip that came away bloody.

"Look, Tesla. I'm crying from an eye I DON'T FUCKING HAVE!" He broke down into a painful combination of hysterical laughter and heartrending sobs, curling his tall form around itself protectively.

When his fit eventually passed, minutes or maybe even hours later, he felt the blonde arrancar take hold of his hand once again. Nnoitra watched placidly as Tesla produced a soft rag and slowly wiped the blood off of his fingers, tracing the path of a drop that ran down his wrist, dutifully cleaning every smear. As the last bit was removed he flung out his arm, surprising the Fraccion and throwing him across the room hard enough to crack the wall. "Get off me you fucking fag! You're as bad as a woman, cozying up to me, constantly following me around and trying to touch me."

"Nnoitra-sama, I was just…"

"Just what? You're such a girl Tesla, with your soft skin, feminine face and big innocent looking eyes. You probably want what every woman wants."

"I…"

"Would you like me to treat you like a girl, Tesla? I've seen how you watch me. I've heard how jealously you protect your position as my only Fraccion." He advanced on the smaller arrancar, who stood frozen in fear at being the focus of his master's dark mood. Nnoitra shoved at his chest, slamming him back him up against the wall and pressed his larger body forward, trapping the blonde there. He watched avidly as those big green eyes darted around, looking everywhere but carefully avoiding that gaping hole in Nnoitra's face.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you. Would you spread yourself wide and take me in like a common prostitute, Tesla? Would you scream in pleasure or pain if I used you, filled you and tore you apart from the inside?" He thrust a knee in between the Fraccion's legs and leaned forward, forcing the smaller man to stare him in the eye. For a minute the Espada fantasized that if he got too close, Tesla too would be devoured by that grasping darkness, disappearing forever into his missing eye.

"Nnoitra-sama… please." The Fraccion's eyes were full of tears and a hint of lust as the Quinto's hands grasped roughly at his hair forcing his head back at a painful angle.

Nnoitra leaned his face into the pale, exposed throat of his panting subordinate. Slowly and deliberately he licked his long tongue up the length of the presented throbbing jugular, feeling the pulse jump against his wet tattooed muscle at each movement. With a low voice he whispered breathily into the blonde's ear. "There is only one thing I hate more than women, and that's pathetic little whores like you who wish they were women."

He roughly threw the Fraccion in the direction of the door, turning back to the window and his contemplation of the endless sand, filled with grains of memory. "Now, get out before I decide to kill you!"

-/-/-/-\-\-\-

Heart pounding, Tesla leaned his back against the cool wood of the door that divided him once again from Nnoitra. Out here, in the relative safety of the corridor he could fantasize that it was the only barrier between them, but once he faced the Quinto he always remembered just how many defenses and emotional walls the other man truly had. The blonde had long since lost count of the breakdowns he had witnessed and been punished for.

As he allowed his breathing to calm, Tesla wondered again just who Nnoitra had been in life and what could have happened to break him so completely.

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Wow, I'm a woman with a gay best friend so it was kinda bizarre to write as a homophobic misogynist. I just felt the need to rant at the world a little bit and haven't posted anything in months. Oddly enough, I feel better now. Yay! for quick and dirty 2-hour therapeutic Dark!Fics.

I hate Nnoitra and I love Xander, and unfortunately the idea of Nnoitra!Xander just wouldn't leave me alone and works way too well. I was trying for a pathetically sad Nnoitra that even Nnoi haters like myself might feel some sympathy for, with a touch of one-sided Nnoitra/Tesla. How'd I do?

Note – Title is from the fact that Nnoitra's Zanpakuto Santa Teresa translates to Sacred Crying Mantis in Japanese.

Distribution: FFN (Lightning_Skies), Twisting the Hellmouth (LightningSkies)

Author has given no other permissions.

1,467 Words - 4 Pages - 01/06/10


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